HOPE

The third installment in Ulrich Seidl’s PARADISE trilogy, PARADISE: HOPE tells the story of overweight 13-year-old Melanie and her first love. While her mother travels to Kenya (PARADISE: LOVE) and her aunt does missionary work (PARADISE: FAITH), Melanie spends her summer vacation at a strict diet camp for overweight teenagers. Between physical education and nutrition counseling, pillow fights and her first cigarette, Melanie falls in love with the camp director, a doctor 40 years her senior. As the doctor struggles with the guilty nature of his desire, Melanie had imagined her paradise differently.